First batch mailing will go out tomorrow. Just to note we will mail worldwide on this if you met the other qualifications 50 posts and/or 3 months membership

Andrew

Innovation Cooling

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Andrew!!!!!!! Ya made it my friend! Nice to see ya over here on the "dark side."

Seriously man, TechPowerUP, or as well all pretty much refer to it as "TPU," has a great member base. Awesome people and very honest.

For example, Copenhagen, who is a long time member, currently has 3 tubes of the ICD24 and backed out of the free give away. Figured he didn't need any more and didn't want to deprive another member from receiving a tube!! Very awesome of him to do this.

That is the kind of folks that are in this great community. I think you'll find some very awesome people roaming around in here Andrew!!!

I am tho in the process of deciding what kind of watercooling i am getting for that setup.

don't have 50 posts, but have been a member since march.

Edit:
ok here are the temps (see pics)
ambient was 24 degrees C (according to a cheap thermometer i got, feels like 21 tho). The CPU cooler was set at 870 RPM(probably the reason i got over 70 degrees C), and the GPU had control over its fans.

the 3770k is toasty little bugger would be nice to shave a few more temps off, i have MX4 to compare against as well as plain old nasty white goop. so would be nice to have some sexy badass TIM to test with.

the 3770k is toasty little bugger would be nice to shave a few more temps off, i have MX4 to compare against as well as plain old nasty white goop. so would be nice to have some sexy badass TIM to test with.

yea i got 3 tims to test and a hot chip so if i can get some and it drops temps 1-2c its epic win in my book. If i wasn't such a pansy id try it on my GPU as well lol but it already runs cool so its moot there. anyway rambling aside...

I must haz cheezeburger or IC Diamond 24 or hell anything they want to give me. Beggars can't be choosers

It is good TIM, I have no complaint about the performance, but it is rather difficult to spread, and it stains the IHS and heatsink base.

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ICD24 Is the same mix as the ICD7 - only difference is volume - 4.8 gm is = Carat = .2 grams X 24 = 4.8 We weigh all tubes as filling machine has a tolerance of =/- 5% machine is set to a +10% so there are no under fills.

We strongly discourage manual spreading as our investigations have shown that manual application whips air into the mix and resulting air bubbles

Manual Spread

Same application as above clamped between two glass slides note the white spots these are the initial air bubbles. Again the issue or problems with air bubbles is that air is very difficult to compress and will expand under heat and pressure which will displace the TIM with voids - This will impact performance and reliability which is why we recommend a Compression spread only Please Review Application Notes

We recommend cleaning thoroughly with acetone then a final wipe with IP - Most true staining noted was on the copper only due to copper oxidation with some copper bleed to the nickel IHS was due to improper cleaning.

Chemically there is not much there to react with it is Mostly Diamond (92 %) a couple % carbon black, couple % polymeric binders and a drop or two synthetic oil.

Contamination will cause a stain so cleanliness is important.

We always recommend that the sink be cleaned thoroughly also especially when they are new from the factory as some residue from the factory cleaning may remain as we have noted in the past these will react with the polymeric binders and will harden to a rock hard consistency. . It happens infrequently as I have only two examples in the last five years.

Note the halo around the hardened ICD This is a signature of contamination. Manufacturing heat sinks is a dirty process, nickel plating, flux cleaners, multiple washes and minuscule droplets of a industrial cleaner can cause a problem, So good shop practice is clean all with a good solvent before assembly.

Many of the stain pictures I have seen posted have been a misconception as Copper under heat will oxidise at a faster rate but the area in contact with the CPU is under compression and air tight and so does not oxidise and is as shiny as the day it was lapped so the contrast between the naturally oxidised copper and the n-oxidised area is misconstrued as a stain.

The oxidation is only 400 to 600 atoms thick and has no effect on performance and is a cosmetic that is buried from the light of day so I wonder at people preoccupation with it. In any event it can be easily removed for those perfectionists with any thermal compound as most compounds, AS5, Shin Etsu, MX4 etc. contain aluminium oxide (what they make sand paper out of) and are natural lapping compounds, a little dab on a clean cloth and 10 seconds of vigorous polishing and it will be gone.

Contact and Pressure - The Only Thing You Ever really need to Know About thermal Compound

Besides adequate application amount the only 2 things anybody has to know to understand thermal compound reliability and thermal compound performance is good contact/pressure (C/P).

It's that simple, if the sink's barely touching the CPU Performance will drop.

If the sink's barely touching the CPU, perhaps only 25% contact area you have 3X heat transfer through 1/4 the area. The solder iron effect with the increase in heat density will kill any paste or LM in short order, even solder joints fail under these thermal stresses.

If you had a 100 Identical PC Systems all with a great mounting system and running the same wattage results would be pretty much identical in performance and reliability. The issue in variability of mechanics in mounting are reflected in the variability of results.

Following charts show a non trivial 9 C spread- To qualify a result it has to be quantified.

One of the things we will be looking at in this survey is Water block/Thermal Compound performance. On our last survey at OCUK there was a high % water blocks tested, almost 25% and most cluster in the low performance range and would like to see if the trend continues

I thought this was an Interesting breakout of the numbers Delta' between compounds on the Water Cooling shrink considerably about 2C on the MX2 and MX3 and 2.75C on the MX4.

The only one cooler that bucked the trend was the Corsair and perhaps the EK block with better mounting schemes.

Below is a data sort of the test results The blue bars are air cooling all others in red are water cooling.

The Corsair results are marked in green and follow the usual distribution

I swore I would never remove my CPU cooler again unless it was life and death as it's close to impossible without breaking something so I'll have to pass. Seems my days of hardcore testing and lulz have come to an end

I'm sure that dosen't matter Hell, I'll even pay for the shipping if you want some and shipping is the issue

ICD24 Is the same mix as the ICD7 - only difference is volume - 4.8 gm is = Carat = .2 grams X 24 = 4.8 We weigh all tubes as filling machine has a tolerance of =/- 5% machine is set to a +10% so there are no under fills.

We recommend cleaning thoroughly with acetone then a final wipe with IP - Most true staining noted was on the copper only due to copper oxidation with some copper bleed to the nickel IHS was due to improper cleaning.

<SNIP>

Contamination will cause a stain so cleanliness is important.

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If improper cleaning/contamination is the reason for the discoloration, I wonder why I have only noticed it from using ICD and not other TIM such as MX-4, Shin-Etsu 7783D, or T-C 0098 or Quantum?

I always use the same cleaning method; 91% IPA on a paper coffee filter.

If improper cleaning/contamination is the reason for the discoloration, I wonder why I have only noticed it from using ICD and not other TIM such as MX-4, Shin-Etsu 7738D, or T-C 0098 or Quantum?

I always use the same cleaning method; 91% IPA on a paper coffee filter.

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People can post pictures of any staining here they encounter if they wish - can not analyze what you can not see, lets get some feedback I am OK with that.

post em up

The oxidation is only 400 to 600 atoms thick and has no effect on performance and is a cosmetic that is buried from the light of day so I wonder at people preoccupation with it. In any event it can be easily removed for those perfectionists with any thermal compound as most compounds, AS5, Shin Etsu, MX4 etc. contain aluminium oxide (what they make sand paper out of) and are natural lapping compounds, a little dab on a clean cloth and 10 seconds of vigorous polishing and it will be gone.

Just an Idea here - How about we include some Contact & Pressure Paper with each sample Similar to what you see as raw image in data points 1 & 2?

The test is simple - just mount the paper between your sink and IHS then remove it -Raw prints can give allot of information about your mount - A great tool - we might like to even take a few and do a full lab analysis.